There’s no other way of introducing Synthetic Heart without scratching your head to the highly dubious Cockney accent doing Phil Oakey glares from the cheekbones, courtesy of Unlike Me. Mercifully RnR, the sound of Orange Rockcorps, has firepower in buckets, a raver/breaker leaving long synth fumes, bass groomed in the underworld and piano licks that cannot fail to bring back to mind those thinking they know how to rave kick-stepping on the spot and looking like total berks. Hardcore nostalgia, while always in the air somewhere, is particularly pungent at the moment, so make a move for this if you can get round the peculiar vocal accompaniment.
Loaded with archive precision, Mindscape plumps up the sped up Apaches, turns the focal riff into something of classic piano strength that’s will not stand to be dismissed, and jacks up both with a guarded bassline on the low that would torch a Christmas goose in seconds. Not painstaking in its rave restoration, but not half-assed either, as if Rack has given his ‘92 white label collection a digital spritz of Mr Muscle.
Pull Up That reaches the inevitable ragga-rave stage of the equation after Selecta Dub has sweet-talked its way across dubstep RSI that comes with sitting on six by six speakers. The former’s skank and stammer with a bassline plunge to unblock drains from timezones away that should make some noise in bass music’s current potpourri. By the end of the EP Rack n Ruin has placed himself slap bang in the middle of the argument about harking back to past rave glories: the tunes have got the embroidered bomber jacket look down to a tee, but (personal bugbear alert) it’s like remaking a classic film frame for frame, shot for shot, word for word. Nonetheless, aside from some overused samples, Rack n Ruin has got some champion sounds going on.